To think 'The A Word' has lost it a bit

[Justmeagain78]

This series has been so moving and educational so far I was utterly disappointed with tonight's episode. What could have been a realistic portrayal of the struggle families go through to get support turned into a ridiculous farce. The specialist with a childhood grudge against Joe's mum was just silly and unrealistic. The mum is also starting to be portrayed as a pantomine villain rather than a flawed mum who loves her son. The family dramas have overshadowed Joe and his issues - I really don't care about granddad, the Viagra and the ukulele lady or watching the family lurch from bickering to snogging - I wanted something better than Eastenders! Such a shame.

Zen1 Yes that's exactly what I meant. The therapist was so unrealistic and silly.

It's going downhill quickly imo, way too much about the extended family which rather than supporting the storyline distracts from it and makes it seem that all of Joes problems are due to his family - that is a stereotype most families living with autism could do without being strengthened.

I'm not too bothered about the sex and family dramas, I can see it is a drama and HAs to appeal to audiences. But I can imagine some of the professionals I have met nodding their heads knowingly and saying, 'see it all comes down to the mother.....' Sadly this myth is just being reinforced here.

I'd also love to know what was meant by 'tactical autism'

myfriend DS2 often sat through things his Dbrother was in without any major fuss and he wanted to as he was/is proud of his brother

I started a thread about this programme started as the dx really annoyed me given it was so unrealistic, I have however watched it since with the notion that it is a drama and not a documentary. ASD presents in so many different ways that it is impossible to portray to everyone's experience.

What last night's episode did for me was to highlight the impact on a sibling - and I did question myself on whether I have ever put DS2 ahead of DS1

I thought it was compelling viewing

Whilst at the sane time hating that the mother is portrayed as such a bitch.

It reminds me a bit if Dr Foster (another crazy bitch woman)

I have a ds with ASD, he also has learning difficulties and attends a special school so my experience of diagnosis / support is very different. I have been watching and thought there were a few good points shown in episode 3, it highlighted how excluded siblings can feel, Joe's unusual behaviour at the show and the reactions to it was spot on and the differences in attitude between the parents is another common issue, the divorce rate among parents of a child with autism is very high. It lost me with the therapist and the whole history from school thing though!!! Only a few people would be able to afford to have a specialist assessment like that, they are not showing a typical family struggling to get NHS speech therapy, input from local ASD teams and help at school............perhaps that will come later.

Well I have always been made to feel guilty that my ds's difficulties were because I did not give them enough social interaction or contact with family so am obviously relieved to hear that the cause of autism is too much talking!

Would love to see the SALT's face it I walked in with all my family. Would love to see my families faces if I suggested they might come to appointments. Our experience of SALT therapy was a brown paper envelope of photocopied sheets which, unsurprisingly, the ds's refused to engage with and have languished in the cupboard ever since.

dh and I do wonder how we look to the professionals. On paper probably a pair of stroppy parents who think their child can do no harm and refuse to engage - we have withdrawn ds2 from no less than four schools and are now home educating and have declined the opportunity for yet another social services assessment. Only when you look closer do you see that ds2 was making no academic progress at school, had no friends and was becoming increasingly aggressive and we have had contact with five social workers previously, each time resulting in physical backlash from ds2, with no long term positive outcome.

What does ring true is the arguing amongst the parents as to what to do and the enormous emotional energy it takes in trying to get support for your child.

I'm still at the point of wanting to rip that mother's throat out.

She's not looking out for Joe. She's trying to knock his corners off so she can ram him - a square peg - into a round hole because of how she feels. How it reflects on her.

I do like the dad though.

the sister is lovely too (like who she dealt with the breakfast situation)

but bit worried for her

Thing is if she was genuinely all about Joe I could understand.

But it's all about her. She wants him to be 'normal' - he is who he is and yes intervention could help him in life of course it could but he'd never be her definition of what she wants her son to be.

It makes me rage, and her utter refusal to reconsider her line of thinking even though that's detrimental to her son's wellbeing. Because she has to be in control.

With autism it's not about control its about managment.

I can't stick the mum.

She is so fucking awful. I spend most of the time shouting at the TV because she is horrible. DH loves it though.

I don't know. I am finding it interesting because what Joe does with his music, I did up until I had children. For me, it was musicals but it served the same function. And the bit in episode 2 where he rewound a particular lyric again and again, I did that too.

I do agree there is a certain amount of stereotyping but to see your own behaviour reflected in mainstream telly without too much negative judgment is fascinating so I am going to keep on.

Reading all this puts me off watching ot anymore. I find it so unrealistic to my experiences. Are they still letting joe walk along country roads with his headphones on?

I agree the that the SALT therapist talking to the whole family and analysing their dynamics is wholly unrealistic. DS is an aspie, and the only people who have been directly involved with the professionals were my wife and I and DS. I really would not want any other family involved - way too stressful.
The effect on the sister is food for thought for us. I wonder how DD is affected by my son's condition sometimes.
I can't relate to all the arguing personally. I've been lucky in that DW and I generally have the same opinion about what to do with DS, we rarely argue about it. If you did have very different viewpoints it would be very difficult imo.
I think the Mum is bonkers personally. Who starts home educating their child without discussing it with their partner first!

I too enjoy watching the interaction between Joe and his dad and their shared love of music, and also his interaction with his sister who just goes with Joe's flow - as does the child minder (Maya?). All with productive effect.

But the mum is just in his face all the time, talking at him, never giving him space, trying to rip his comfort mechanisms from him and mould him into what she wants and expects. Then gets angry because it doesn't work.

I keep finding myself yelling at the telly - just leave him alone!

There was a series called 'The C word'.
An American drama series about Cancer.
It was quite good, iirc.

The mother being late was neither here nor there. As if Joe noticed.

The whole point of that scene was that the sister noticed. I agree with people who find the mother really irritating - can she really not see that when your child is in the lead role in a school play it's just not good enough to say that you put seeing a therapist about their brother was more important? Particularly when she could perfectly well have put off seeing Maggie for one day.

That was why I quite liked Maggie, irrespective of the whole family therapy thing - she was the one person prepared to stand up to Alison.

Also there was a part of me cheering Maggie on, because she was saying things I would love to be able to say to the bullies who made my life at school miserable for a time.

I thought the portrayal of the mum had been very good in the first two episodes because she clearly loves him and is confused and terrified of autism. Her fear of his social exclusion could have been shown to come from her being bullied at school but I wasn't sure what was gained by making her the bully. It's made her too one dimensional. You can be realistic without being boring.

Yes, I think we were meant to cheer Maggie on

I cheered Maggie for standing up to the mum. But not for the family therapy aspect. To pathologise the family for their communication style was a bit off I thought. All families have their idiosyncratic dysfunctional ways. And using humour as a defence mechanism? Bog standard normal human behaviour in my opinion. Not problematic and not particularly relevant to the little boy's problems.

I saw a few episodes of the Israeli show it's based on, called "Yellow Peppers", and while my Hebrew isn't great I'm pretty sure there was more about the boy's point of view and less shagging in the original. Mind you, I could easily have missed the double entendres,!

The writing for the mother is getting dreadful. But what she is trying to do is help her child. They've written that to be a waste of hers, the child's and everyone's time and something that she is doing for her. Whereas in the first episode, the writing gave her more insight into how difficult life would be for Joe, and how she would push for him to receive the help he would need to learn new skills.

I don't think Maggie was exacting revenge, though. On the contrary, she was doing her best for Joe, and realistically there was no real logic in Alison's conviction that she was the only possible therapist who could help him. She just wasn't prepared to be pressurised/bullied into working with Joe long term when someone local could do it just as well.